Morning Jolt - North Korea Launches a Three-Stooge Rocket

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

April 13, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. North Korea Launches a Three-Stooge Rocket

2. Hilary Rosen: Thrown under the Bus More Suddenly than Vincent Ludwig

3. Okay, America, How Do You Like What You've Gotten since January 2009?

4. Addendum

Happy Friday!

Enjoy.

Jim

1. North Korea Launches a Three-Stooge Rocket

I love it when Korean Peninsula-tensions stories turn out like this -- and dread the day they don't:

North Korea launched a multistage rocket Friday morning, again defying countries that want it to stop pursuing advanced weapons, but it reportedly blew up less than two minutes into flight and parts crashed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea.

The rocket took off around 7:39 a.m. local time from a new launch facility in the country's northwest corner and flew south towards Japan's Ryuku Islands, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.

About 90 seconds into flight, roughly the time its first stage should have burned out and second stage kicked in, the rocket flared brightly and apparently exploded, according to ABC News, which cited U.S. defense officials. Parts fell into water near South Korea's Jeju Island, South Korean media reported.

Intel bonanza, people! So why did they do it? CNN suggests too much upside, too little downside:

The United States and its allies had been if anything unambiguous with their thoughts on the launch. So just why did Pyongyang go ahead with the launch? There is no shortage of answers or theories to that question, but many analysts who follow the country say the regime simply does not have that much to lose, and thus need not weigh much in the way of costs versus benefits going forward.

"How much more isolated can you get?" asks James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The United Nations has sanctioned North Korea many times over for its provocative acts of the past, and the country's largest economic and political benefactor China, is unlikely to support any additional penalties at the Security Council this time.

"There may be some financial sanctions that the United States and its friends can unilaterally apply, but this is already by a long way the most isolated country on Earth," Acton said. "The truth is that our ability to inflict significant costs on North Korea is not all that large."

The timing of the launch was not coincidental, and that too played into the North Korean calculus. For years, North Korea has been planning to mark 2012 as a year in which it would show the world it has become a great and prosperous nation. In homage to the centenary of the country's founder Kim ill Sung, his son and successor Kim Jong-Il had ordered the launch of the satellite around the birthday of Kim Il Sung on April 15.

I would note that when we keep offering them aid in response to tantrums, they seem to sense that we'll always capitulate sooner or later.

Zero Hedge: "North Korea is redefining the term, 'minuteman.'"

Patrick Kronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, remarked dryly, "Next time, we should not have to rely on North Korean technical incompetence for our security."

The endlessly saucy and irreverent Duchess Rebecca: "Imagining Kim Jong-Un sitting alone, crying, listening to 'Rocket Man' on repeat."

Chris Albon: "Dear Kim, Angry Birds Space is not a rocket guidance system."

Cuffy Meh: "CNN guy just said the people of North 'Carolina' are starving."

John Noonan: "So nice to be an Air Force ICBM vet tonight, a stark and cheerful reminder that our missiles actually work."

(May we never have to demonstrate that to the world.)

Andy Levy: "C'mon, NoKo, this isn't rocket science!"

Cameron Gray: "That North Korean rocket broke up faster than Kim Kardashian and . . . fill in the blank."

2. Hilary Rosen: Thrown under the Bus More Suddenly than Vincent Ludwig

Is Hilary Rosen's comment the category-five media hurricane it's being treated as? Probably not. Let's say category three -- but it provides a fascinating comparison after Rush Limbaugh's use of the s-word in denouncing Sandra Fluke.

In both cases, public commentators made sneering remarks about women connected to the candidates they opposed -- women whom a lot of folks in the political world had previously considered as off-limits.

While Rush is separate from the Romney campaign, there's no doubt he's closely associated with the GOP and a key voice in its politics. While Rosen doesn't work for the Obama White House, what's indisputable is that as a communications consultant, Rosen enjoyed a rare level of access to the White House: 35 visits to the White House and five meetings with the president.

Rosen could have avoided much of this if, after the first roars of outrage over her comment, she apologized and indicated she meant that Ann Romney's experience as a mother and whatever economic pressures she dealt with while raising her sons were not representative of those of most women in the United States. It was the hyperbole -- "she's never worked a day in her life!" -- that made Rosen sound so nasty and dismissive. Throughout last night and most of today, Rosen doubled down and insisted everything she said was perfectly in bounds.

Peggy Noonan was left wondering, "Where do the Democrats get these spokesmen who are so narrow in their understanding of women? What are they launching, a war on women?"

Allahpundit at Hot Air finds some CNN footage he deems a must-watch:

Via Greg Hengler, skip to 2:25 for my very favorite moment from this entire daylong clusterfark. Media firestorms come and go, my friends, but how often do they involve hostage-video apologies to the camera by the transgressor? When she was done, I half-expected him to say, "I didn't see any tears." Note to Ann Romney: If CNN offers to have you on together with Rosen, you must, must agree, if only in the interest of video gold when Blitz inevitably says, "How about a hug?"

3. Okay, America, How Do You Like What You've Gotten since January 2009?

I can't put it much better than Ace, responding to a new national Fox News poll that puts Mitt Romney narrowly ahead of Barack Obama:

Don't call it a comeback. It's baked in the cake.

Look, at the end of the day, people can say whatever they gonna say. (Just went a little street on ya.)

But Dick Morris is right -- Obama can make this micro-issue the "Issue of the Media Day," and that diversion the Meme of the Week.

But when it comes down to it -- these are illusory victories.

The real issue that all voters will face in November is this: Do I want to sign up for a repeat of the last four years or do I want a chance at something different?

The Reagan-Carter race was, according to the polls, fairly close until the end, when people finally stopped thinking about mere politics and started thinking about the real question: Do the last four years represent the best I think I can do? Am I getting full service on my checks?

The answer was no then, and it will be "no" again.

Prediction: Three quarters of that undecided vote goes for Romney.

If you're "undecided" on Obama after four years? Guess what. You don't like him. It's not getting any better.

One cautionary note on that: Democrats were convinced heading into the 2004 presidential election that Kerry would win because "two-thirds of the undecideds break to the challenger." It turned out a little differently that time:

Contrary to the historical pattern, undecided voters did not break to the challenger: "Oops! According to exit polls, Bush got 46 percent of those who made up their minds in the last week of the campaign and 44 percent of those who made up their minds in the final three days. TIPP got it wrong, Gallup got it very wrong, and Slate's vote-share formula got it very, very wrong. Who got it right? Pew again. In its final report, Pew predicted that undecideds 'may break only slightly in Kerry's favor.' With 6 percent of voters undecided in the week before the election, Pew added 3 percent to Bush's total and 3 percent to Kerry's."

Having said that, remember that the Friday before Election Day, Osama bin Laden released his videotape. Some argued that it helped Bush, some weren't quite sure, but it undoubtedly seemed like a late-breaking curveball. Considering how Bush's campaign had emphasized the importance of his War on Terror policies, it's easy to picture the OBL tape's moving undecideds in his direction.

4. Addendum

Ben Howe: "North Korea has Projectile Disfunction."